Become More Fluent and Confident with this Simple Practice

Hadar Shemesh (non-native English speaker and coach) presents a short YouTube lesson on treating confidence as a skill to practice alongside English. She argues that confidence both results from improving language skills and can be trained directly. She offers several actionable practices: an appreciation practice (daily note of what English enabled), a wording reframe (change 'need to' into 'get to'), deliberately doing something that scares you (exposure exercises such as going live or interviewing in English), and managing negative thoughts via pattern-interrupts (change action or shift focus). The video closes with prompts to comment, subscribe, and continue practicing despite mistakes.
Chapters
Hey everyone, it's Hadar. Thank you so much for joining me today. We are going to talk about confidence. Now when I ask my students and followers what is the one thing or the few things that they would like to improve about their English, they usually mention something related to either pronunciation or flow or grammar. But then right after that they also say, I really want to be more confident when I when speaking English. So confidence seems to be the one thing that people crave the most, yet they're not sure how to achieve it. Now here's the thing. While confidence definitely improves, the more you practice your English and the more you put your English into use and you use it speaking to other people. And of course, the more you increase your knowledge and improve your knowledge and you become more aware of what it is that you're doing and how to use the language of of course that is going to boost your confidence and help you feel more confident and in control and in charge when you're communicating in English. However, what if we also looked at confidence as a skill in and of itself? So just like English or basketball or cooking or knitting or ice skating, where all of those things are skills that need to be practiced and improved, what if it's the confidence that we were to practice and improve and not just English? So yes, confidence is a byproduct of improving your English, but we can also address working on your confidence and your mindset and that alone will help you become more confident. And when you're confident, you, you're also more fluent because lack of confidence definitely affects your flow and fluency and the availability of the language in your head. So it's a win, win situation. So on one hand, to improve your confidence, you need to improve your English, but to improve your English, you should be working on improving your confidence as well. So in this video I'm going to share with you a few exercises and mindset tips that are going to help you work on your confidence and not just on your English. Now I have tried these exercises with my students in my programs because in my programs I really tackle this idea of confidence and mindset because I think it's an intrinsic part of learning a language. And I have to tell you that they love those exercises and now I'm sharing them with you. Now if you're new to my channel, then let me introduce myself. My name is Hadar. I'm. I'm a non native speaker of English and I am here to help you feel confident, clear and free when communicating in English. And if you want to Find out more about how I can help you reach your goals in English. Come on over to my website@hadarchemish.com or follow me on Instagram Hadar Accentsway, because over there I share with you a lot of exercises and resources for you to get to where you want to be. Now let's talk about confidence as a skill. The first exercise is the appreciation practice. Every day I want you to take a moment and think about the things that you were able to do thanks to your English. So instead of complaining about your English or feeling frustrated because of your English, you in this exercise, I want you to think about all the great things you currently have or the experiences you've had during that day thanks to your ability to communicate in English. Whether it's you living in an English speaking country and something good happened to you and that wouldn't have been possible without the knowledge of the language, or maybe you had a good conversation, or maybe you just had a really good practice, or maybe you just stayed consistent and and did the work and that was something that you're proud of and you're appreciative of, right? So the idea is to start showing more appreciation towards your English because then it would not feel like an enemy you need to battle or something you need to overcome. But English will become your friend and English will become a part of you and who you are and what you do. So at the end of each day, I want you to write down one or two things that you are now able to do thanks to your English. Or you can just write a couple of things that you're proud of that you did related to English. The next exercise is called choosing your words. And I learned this exercise from the brain coach, Jim Kwik. Now, Jim Kwik suggests that every time you find yourself using need to, you want to change it to get to. It also has to do with this appreciation work that you are not doing something just because you have to, but you are appreciative of the fact that you get to do them. Because listen, so many people in this world don't even have access to the Internet and they are unable to watch this video to learn and to improve you. You have the ability and the privilege of learning English through the Internet, otherwise you wouldn't be here watching this video, which is incredible. So even if it feels like the odds are against you sometimes because you don't have places to practice, you feel frustrated you have no one to give you feedback. Remember that you still have access to all this knowledge and this is something that you don't want to take for granted. So even if you feel like, oh, I need to work on my grammar or I need to practice English, what if you changed it to I get to practice my English, I get to improve my grammar? And then that alone can create a mindset shift where you focus on the positive rather than on the negative. And there is nothing more motivating and inspiring than feeling positive about your experience learning English. Because when you have all those negative feelings, it just pulls you down and you don't really want to do the work and you feel frustrated and you feel. And you start being hard on yourself. And all of that does not lead to a productive place. Something else that I'm inviting you to do is to do something that scares you, which means to go live on Instagram or to post on Facebook or LinkedIn a story that you wrote or. Or you can start uploading videos on a regular basis in the influency our community for global speakers from around the world. Or you can start going to job interviews to jobs that you don't even want, but you want the practice or the experience of interviewing in English because it freaking scares you. The idea is to think about something that really scares you. But inside you feel like this is something that you could potentially do or, or that would be interesting, or maybe you look at the people who are able to do these things and you're like, they're so confident, they're so lucky. So the idea is to start doing it before you feel the confidence. So do something that scares you, whatever that is. And if you can think of something that scares you, write it in the comments below and say, I am going to go live on Instagram, start a YouTube channel, go to a job interview in English or whatever that scary thing is for you. All right, so I'm going to be reading your comments. Make sure to comment it below. Another thing that I want to talk to you about is managing your negative thoughts. Managing your negative thoughts is a skill that you want to develop and that is going to help you boost your confidence. Because the negative thoughts that you're experiencing while speaking in English or learning English or practicing English is something that is affecting your confidence. So managing those thoughts is something that can help you improve your confidence. Again, working on developing the skill of confidence. So one of the ways to do that is to use pattern interrupt. Pattern interrupt is when you get into the pattern of those negative thoughts thoughts. Oh, it's not possible for you. Oh, you won't be able to do it. Oh, why even bother? Because you are not talented in learning languages, right? Like when that pattern of negative thoughts, you know what it is for you? When that starts happening in your brain, I want you to break the pattern. One of the ways to do that is to change the action, right? Like go wash your face, go do 10 jumping jacks. Get on the phone with a good friend and tell them what's going on with you. Yell into your pillow. This is I am not going to listen to those thoughts. Or you can simply say to yourself, stop it. And then move away to something positive. The idea is to not get into that pattern, right? Like, and not dwell in it and think about it too much, but instead to just shift from that situation and move into something else that is more productive. Manage those negative thoughts. This is something that is definitely going to improve your confidence. Okay, so these were a few exercises that you can do to boost your confidence, but there are many, many more. So if you have any other subscribers suggestions or tips or exercises that you'd like to share, please share them in the comments with the rest of the community. Now, if you like this video, consider liking it and subscribing to my channel because I share with you a valuable lesson every single week and also you can share it with friends who also need this confidence boost. Thank you so so much for watching. And remember that making mistakes is the only way to learn. So stop being afraid of mistakes, stop being afraid of not being perfect, and just get into the work of using English so it starts serving you. All right? And I'm here to help. I got you. Have a beautiful week and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.
More from Hadar

Read Out Loud with me! Dare to Lead by Brené Brown | Pronunciation & Vocabulary practice









